FinSA (FIDLEG)

The Financial Services Act (FinSA), which is expected to enter into force on 1 January 2020, will introduce a new registration duty for client advisers of Swiss financial service providers not subject to prudential regulation and client advisers of foreign financial institutions. Today, no such registration requirement exists with the exception of similar obligations for untied…

The following article deals with the differences between the rules of conduct under MiFID II and FinSA. In the first part, the initial situation is described. Subsequently, the individual differences are discussed in more detail. The main differences in regulation can be found in the areas of client segmentation, definition of the service types, appropriateness…

The introduction of the concept of an “offer” according to Art. 3 let. g FinSA as a replacement of the current notion of a “distribution” pursuant to Art. 3 CISA will lead to a number of consequences for the Swiss financial industry as well as for foreign financial services providers acting on a cross-border basis into Switzerland. The new concept is more…

In December 2016, the Swiss Council of States as the first chamber of Swiss parliament discussed the proposed Financial Services Act. If enacted as currently drafted, the act will impose new requirements on financial services providers and introduce a new Swiss prospectus regime. Modeled largely after the EU prospectus framework, the new prospectus regime will…

More regulation and digitization are two important trends that are currently reshaping the financial industry in Switzerland. In this context, the Swiss Federal Council has proposed the creation of a specific new FinTech regulation that shall be particularly relevant for business models in the overlapping areas of these two topics and has mandated the Federal…

After having been discussed throughout 2016 in various sessions of the Economic Affairs and Taxation Committee of the Swiss Federal Council of States (WAK-S), on 14 December 2016 the new Federal Financial Services Act (Finanzdienstleistungsgesetz; FIDLEG) was finally resolved on by the Federal Council of States (SR). Compared to the bill of the Federal Council (the…

In CapLaw-2016-5, Enrico Friz outlined in detail the new duty of manufacturers of financial instruments to produce a key information document (KID, Basisinformationsblatt) for all financial instruments. This duty shall be implemented by the Financial Services Act (FinSA) which will likely be set into force during the course of 2018 and is currently being debated…

By Thomas Werlen / Matthias Portmann / Jonas Hertner (Reference: CapLaw-2017-05) This article is an update of CapLaw-2016-4 in which the Dispatch on the draft Financial Services Act (FinSA) was discussed with a focus on Title 5 aimed to facilitate the enforcement of the rights of clients vis-à-vis Financial Services Providers (FSP). On 4 November…

On 4 November 2015, the Swiss Federal Council adopted the draft Financial Services Act and submitted it to the Swiss Parliament. If enacted as proposed, it will impose new requirements on financial services providers and will introduce a new Swiss prospectus regime. Modeled largely after the EU prospectus framework, the new prospectus regime will be…